Coincidence and irony

Coincidence: The fact or condition of coinciding. An accidental or remarkable occurrence of events or ideas at the same time, suggesting but lacking a causal relationship.

Irony: A combination of circumstances or a result that is the opposite of what may be expected or considered appropriate.

Two words I often see used interchangeably are coincidence and irony. The difference between them is subtle, I’ll admit. And I sometimes get it wrong.

But the difference does exist for those who pay attention.

One recent example.

For years, the media company I used to work for, Freedom Newspapers / Communications, was on what seemed the wrong side of a debate that really only it was seriously involved in. You see, Freedom, a company founded by fighting libertarians, strongly supported loose laws regarding marijuana. In fact loose is a major understatement. Freedom was for legalizing it outright and promoting it with gusto right up to toking away on the job. And sometimes I got the idea back in the 1980s that even that might be considered OK.

Anyway, this was the company’s position for about 50 years, dating back to after the movie “Reefer Madness” but just before hippies stumbled into the national consciousness out of a San Francisco district known as Haight Ashbury, and Sgt. Joe Friday was on “Dragnet” talking in his monotone voice about the menace created by use of “Mary Jane.”

And besides stoners on college campuses and High Times magazine, newspapers owned by Freedom were the about only ones out there howling into the darkness for making pot available over the counter like hooch at the liquor store. The Times-News and other Freedom newspapers published editorials loudly proclaiming the merits of legalizing marijuana. It would cut costs in law enforcement to investigate and arrest people harming largely no one but themselves, it would unclog the courts and trim expenses there for processing non-violent offenders, and it would empty prisons of people jailed for largely victimless crimes. Above all else, it would stimulate a private business enterprise that would likely lead to government revenues when it would be predictably regulated and taxed like alcohol. Keep it out of the hands of children, too.

So every time a Freedom publication published one of those libertarian editorials, people from all walks of life complained that the newspaper was contributing to the overall decay of society. I know because over the course of nearly 25 years, I fielded some of those calls.

Fast forward to Friday, when I looked at the highly unscientific poll on our website, www.thetimesnews.com. It asks, “Should North Carolina legalize the sale of marijuana for recreational use?” At the time, 392 people had responded. Fifty-five percent said yes. Only 40 percent said no. That corresponds roughly to national polling on the subject today.

Oddly enough, the company known as Freedom no longer exists, or at least not under its former libertarian owners who are no longer in the media business.

That’s irony.

By the way, Colorado was the first state to approve the sale of marijuana for purely recreational purposes. Freedom once owned one of the largest newspapers in Colorado.

That’s coincidence.

Still not sure? Here’s another example.

Last week the Alamance-Burlington Board of Education turned down a joint meeting request issued by the Alamance County Board of Commissioners to discuss ADHD policy and other issues perhaps related to building needs. The Board of Commissioners supplies a big chunk of funding for the school system. Stands to reason the school board might take a meeting with a group like that one for whatever reason — good, bad or indifferent.

Not this time

That’s irony.

By the way, Commissioner Tim Sutton, who asked for the meeting a couple of months ago, said he thinks the Board of Education turned down the proposed sit-down because he’s the one who asked for it. He takes the denial personally. But I suspect ABSS isn’t interested in talking about medical issues with any government body that doesn’t directly oversee that particular school policy and would’ve turned down a request made by any of the commissioners for a meeting on the subject of ADHD.

So that falls into the category of coincidence, as did use of the word “joint.”

And then there’s this.

On Thursday, two background but still highly recognizable figures from the days of TV shows long gone died. One was Russell Johnson, who played the often exasperated but endlessly innovative “Professor” on “Gilligan’s Island.” The other was Dave Madden, who portrayed harried and hapless band manager Reuben Kincaid on “The Partridge Family.”

That both would pass away on the same day seems both ironic and coincidental.

See, it’s not always easy to tell the difference.

Madison Taylor is editor of the Times-News. Contact him by email at mtaylor@thetimesnews.com